Not the Real Thing
| September 30, 2025I see the entire Jewish People standing outside the Makom Hamikdash, knocking on the door, “Abba, let us in!”
I was your typical starry-eyed, inspired seminary girl, the type people roll their eyes at. I’d come to Yerushalayim wanting to grow, but without even understanding what the word meant. I thought I’d get a nice, solid footing in Yiddishkeit before exposing myself to the secular environment of college. But what I got instead was real growth — a changed perspective on what it even meant to be Jewish.
Torah was no longer a framework the rest of my life had to fit into; instead it became the way I wanted to live my life. Instead of “as long as it’s not assur, why not?” I was beginning to think in terms of “What does Hashem want from me?” I’d spent my year in the City of Gold, and I’d only seen the sparkle.
Walking to the Old City on Shavous night with what felt like all of Am Yisrael was an apt pinnacle to a year of magic. Just like the olei regel of old, I mused, we were all walking toward the Kosel. The Kosel! I was literally about to daven in the center of the universe.
As we got closer, though, winding our way through the stone alleyways, a thought pushed its way into my mind, puncturing my elation like the thistles and weeds growing between the stone walls around us. This isn’t really like aliyah l’regel, is it? We aren’t going into the Beis Hamikdash. There are no korbanos. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
But my thoughts felt out of sync with the festive scene around me, more appropriate for Tishah B’Av, and I swatted them away.
As we approached, the crowds of bochurim and men started singing. We were almost there. Waves of dancing, singing men and throngs of regally dressed women and girls flooded the Kosel plaza, filling it to capacity. Joy filled the air. I felt better. Yes, this is Yom Tov in Yerushalayim! This is how it’s supposed to be.
I let the contentment fill me as I found a quiet corner to daven farther from the crowds. When I got to Mussaf, the words practically jumped off the page at me. “U’mipnei chataeinu… — because of our sins we’ve been banished from our land… we can’t fulfill our obligations in Your House.” There it was, right on the page of my siddur. It’s really not the way it’s supposed to be.
At that moment, the Kosel transformed before my eyes. All year long, I’d gone to The Kosel — it was A Place. But now I saw a place outside A Place, The Place, the one we’re really supposed to be davening in but can’t.
That realization left me craving Geulah in a way I never had before. Not because there was something in my personal life that needed fixing, not because the daily news left my heart breaking, not because of all the tzaros I was constantly hearing about. That Shavous morning turned a wish and a dream into a physical reality — something I could see, an image that appears in my mind’s eye every time I daven Mussaf and get to that paragraph “Yehi Razton, may it be Your Will, Hashem… v’sivneihu meheirah, build it quickly.”
I see the entire Jewish People standing outside the Makom Hamikdash, knocking on the door, “Abba, let us in!”
We want it the way it’s really supposed to be.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1081)
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